Rice Vinegar Carrots (米醋紅蘿蔔, Mai5 Cou3 Hung4 Lo4 Baak6)

Whenever I need a quick dish and the only vegetable in my refrigerator is carrots, this is the dish I make. The carrots are just cooked with seasoned rice vinegar and sesame oil. Seasoned rice vinegar has sugar and salt added, so if you just have (unseasoned) rice vinegar, just add a pinch of sugar and salt. Since the carrots are sweet, you get a sweet and sour flavor in the completed dish. This is about as simple as it gets.

Enjoy!

Chili Lemongrass Shrimp Dough Sliced Noodles (辣椒檸檬葉蝦刀削麵, Laat6 Ziu1 Ning4 Mung4 Jip6 Haa1 Dou1 Soek3 Min6)

The white inner core of the lemongrass is sliced finely and stir fried with dried red peppers to flavor the oil used in this shrimp dish. Depending upon your tolerance for heat, you can use more or less red chili peppers. You can also use any noodle that‘s available to you, in this case I used dough sliced noodles.

Enjoy!

Cumin Red Cooked Pork with Baby Choy Sum (小菜心孜然紅燒肉, Siu2 Coi3 Sam1 Zi1 Jin4 Hung4 Siu1 Juk6)

Here’s another dish using Cumin red cooked pork. Pork belly meat is used for bacon, so you can think of this as a stir fried bacon dish, but using bacon made using a different technique. When the pork is stir fried, oil is released into to the wok and is used to stir fry the rest of the ingredients. The poaching liquid used to make the pork is also used in the sauce.

Enjoy!

Cumin Red Cooked Pork with String Beans (青豆角孜然紅燒肉, Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Zi1 Jin4 Hung4 Siu1 Juk6)

Cumin red cooked pork is the basis for this dish. Pork belly meat is used for bacon, so you can think of this as a stir fried bacon dish, but using bacon made using a different technique. When the pork is stir fried, oil is released into to the wok and is used to stir fry the rest of the ingredients. The poaching liquid used to make the pork is also used in the sauce.

Enjoy!

Cumin Red Cooked Pork (孜然紅燒肉, Zi1 Jin4 Hung4 Siu1 Juk6)

I made this dish not to eat alone, but to use as an ingredient in another dish, so this is not made the standard way. Usually red cooked pork is stir fried in sugar in a wok as bite sized pieces, but since I intend to use the pork in other dishes, I cooked the pork in large pieces without the sugar stir fry and added cumin to the spice mix. The pork is cut into thin pieces before making the other dishes and tastes more like bacon than pork.

Enjoy!

Ground Pork with Fuzzy Melon (節瓜豬肉, Zit3 Gwaa1 Zyu1 Juk6)

This is an easy to prepare spicy pork dish. You can substitute ground chicken in place of the pork if desired. The spice comes from Fu Chi Foods brand chili paste with fermented soy bean sauce, which you can buy at your local Asian supermarket. A good substitute is salted black beans and chili garlic sauce if you can’t find that brand. Fuzzy melon gets its name from the fuzz on the outside skin of the melon (it’s really a squash). All you have to do is to rub the skin under running water, and the fuzz comes off.

Enjoy!

Oyster Sauce Shrimp with String Beans (青豆角蠔油蝦, Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Hou4 Jau4 Haa1)

Shrimp and oyster sauce make a great taste combination. The other ingredients – string beans and Shiitake mushrooms – are easily obtained and pair well with shrimp. The salted radish is the ingredient that’s uncommon in this dish. Salted radish is slightly sweet and salty at the same time, and provides an added crunch to the dish. You can buy them at your local Asian market.

Enjoy!